We recently received a great question from Brad in Massachusetts. He asked what franchise, of all the franchises that were part of the old American Football League (AFL), has gone on to experience the most success.

Success is a subjective term that means different things to different people. All of the following information is based on facts through the end of the 2007 NFL season.

Q. What original AFL team has won the most games in their history?
A. The Oakland Raiders. The Raiders have won an even 400 games since they came into the AFL in 1960. In second place in victories is the Kansas City Chiefs with 379 wins and right behind them is the Denver Broncos with 378 wins.

Q. What original AFL team has won the most championships?
A. The Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots have each won three league championships. The Raiders have defeated the Vikings, Eagles, and Redskins in their three Super Bowl victories while the Patriots have beaten the Rams, Panthers, and Eagles in their three Super Bowl victories.

So, it looks like the most successful of all of the former AFL franchises is the Oakland Raiders, with an honorable mention going to the New England Patriots.

A few facts about the least successful of all former AFL franchises:

-The Cincinnati Bengals have won the fewest games of all former AFL teams with just 268 wins. In their defense, the AFL started in 1960 but the Bengals’ first season in the league didn’t come until 1968.

-The teams from the AFL that have never won a Super Bowl in their franchise history include the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, San Diego Chargers, and the Tennessee Titans (who began as the Houston OIlers).

Not really an answer, more like a correction. Krissy Knowitall recently sent a comment to us stating that we had a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fact wrong. We had originally included that two former Bucs starting quarterbacks had gone on to win Super Bowls with other teams (Doug Williams and Trent Dilfer), somehow we inadvertently left out Hall of Famer Steve Young. Thanks Krissy, the injustice has been corrected now in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers page!

While we’re at it, here are a couple of other interesting facts about Steve Young:

-Through 15 seasons in the NFL, Steve Young only started all 16 games of the season three times (1992, 1993, and 1994).

-In 1985 and 1986 as a part time starter with the Buccaneers, Steve Young had below .500 records of 1-4 and 2-12 respectively. In his thirteen seasons with the 49ers he only had one season with a below .500 record as the starting quarterback. This came in 1990 when he started one game for the team and they lost it.

-Even though Steve Young spent the first six seasons of his NFL career as a backup, he never went a full season in the NFL without having at least one rushing touchdown.

-In 1991, the longest touchdown pass thrown by any quarterback in the NFL was thrown by San Francisco’s Steve Young and covered 97 yards.

-Even though Steve Young played at the quarterback position, here are a few notable names that he ranks ahead of in the category of career rushing yards (through the 2007 season): Alan Ameche, “Fast” Willie Parker, Dalton Hilliard, Mike Anderson, Edgar Bennett, Leroy Hoard, Rocky Bleier, Bam Morris, Jim Kiick, Reggie Cobb, Paul Hornung, Fran Tarkenton, Frank Gifford, Reuben Droughns, Tony Nathan, Julius Jones, Rueben Mayes, and Lamont Jordan.

This look at the wild card teams that have made the Super Bowl is prompted by a comment left by “Kelly” who asked:

ok tell me how many wild card teams have made it to the super bowl and not won.

Well, Kelly… we did some research and expanded on your question to cover the history of wild card teams making the Super Bowl. We covered some of this information previously when we talked about wild card teams that had won the Super Bowl.

So, here we go…

The concept of wild card teams (teams with the best records who did not win their division) was introduced in 1970. Although the number of wild card teams allowed into the playoffs has fluctuated, the appearance of wild card teams has not. Since 1970, covering 38 seasons, only nine wild card teams have made it to the Super Bowl. Four wild card teams have won the Super Bowl: The 1980 Oakland Raiders were the first to accomplish this, and another wild card team wouldn’t win the Super Bowl until 17 years later when the 1997 Denver Broncos would do it. This was followed by the 2000 Baltimore Ravens and then the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers. So, there are your four Super Bowl winning wild card football teams.

1980 Oakland Raiders
1997 Denver Broncos
2000 Baltimore Ravens
2005 Pittsburgh Steelers

There have been nine wild card teams to make it to the Super Bowl, four of them have won it all, one plays later today, so the answer to Kelly’s question is that there have been four Super Bowl losing wild card football teams.

Let’s look at the Super Bowl losing wild card teams:

1975 Dallas Cowboys
The 1975 Dallas Cowboys were the first wild card team to make it to the Super Bowl. They won at Minnesota and at the Rams (at the time still in Los Angeles), before losing to one of the legendary 1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers teams.

1985 New England Patriots
The 1985 New England Patriots were the first wild card team to win three playoff games on the road and make it to the Super Bowl. They won at the Jets, at the Raiders, and at the Dolphins before losing in a blowout (46-10) to the famous 1985 Chicago Bears. An interesting fact about the 1985 Patriots is that they were the first, and so far only, team to make it to the Super Bowl after finishing 3rd in their own division (the Dolphins and the Jets both finished ahead of them).

1992 Buffalo Bills
The 1992 Buffalo Bills beat the Oilers at home and then won at Pittsburgh, and at Miami, on their way to making one of their four consecutive Super Bowl appearances. The Super Bowl didn’t go as planned and the 1992 Dallas Cowboys dismantled them by a score of 52-17.

1999 Tennessee Titans
The Titans were still relatively new to Tennessee when they made their Super Bowl run, having recently moved from Houston where they played as the Oilers. The Titans beat the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the playoffs, thanks to what has become the Music City Miracle. The Titans then went on to win on the road against the Colts and Jaguars before losing to the St. Louis Rams and their Greatest Show On Turf.

And now we’ve come to the 9th wild card team to make it to the Super Bowl, the 2007 New York Giants. The Giants have joined two other teams in rare company as teams that have won three consecutive road playoff games to make it to the Super Bowl, the 1985 Patriots who lost and the 2005 Steelers who won.

Good luck Giants!